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Monday March 2, 2009

Rain or shine, the postman still delivers

MONDAY STARTERS
By SOO EWE JIN


But Pos Malaysia has to move forward and embrace cyberspace

THERE is something about the post office that is quite enchanting.

Together with the local school, the police station, the fire station or the district clinic, these time-honoured institutions dot every nook and corner of the country and remind us that no matter where we are, we always have access to certain basic services.

Those of us in the urban centres may take such services for granted but it must be reassuring to our fellow citizens elsewhere to know that the postman still delivers – be it by motorcycle, truck, plane or even a sampan – a letter from Kangar to Kuching for a mere 30 sen.

Datuk Syed Faisal Albar Syed A.R. Albar was not exaggerating when he talked about having to serve the entire population of the country in his position as Pos Malaysia Bhd managing director and chief executive officer. In his previous job, he only served 4.5 million people.

The post office of today has come a long way from the time when it only delivered letters, newspapers and business documents. It now offers a wide range of services, 167 to be precise, where we can pay most of our bills, renew our road tax and driving licence, and even buy air tickets.

Some outlets even have stationery shops though they pale in comparison to, say, the post office retail outlets in Australia and Singapore.

Some 1,650 Australia Post outlets also act as passport agencies, something Pos Malaysia should discuss with our Immigration Department.

But what is new today can become obsolete tomorrow. And commission income can disappear overnight.

I used to pay my utility bills at the post office but I now pay through my bank from the comfort of my home.

The bulk of Pos Malaysia’s mail is business-related – bank statements, credit card statements, bills, etc. But many are switching to e-statements, thus bypassing the postal service.

Last week, I decided to renew my road tax online via the JPJ website at www.jpj.gov.my.

It is a fairly easy process though I must say that the incidental charges – from the delivery fee to the e-services charge – could be substantially reduced.

The road tax is only RM20 for the Kelisa but the extra charges came up to RM9.75.

My better half said I should have continued paying at the post office as the commission is minimal. But I was keen to find out how effective this service was as the future, after all, is in cyberspace.

Even Faisal is aware of how critical broadband is, and it will be interesting to see how the CEO, just barely 100 days into his new position, will map out the future scenario.

In response to a reader’s question, he said there are countries where the retail chains invest heavily in a strong computer system backbone with the support of a more-than-sufficient bandwidth for the entire country.

“The current push by the Government for high-speed broadband will be good for Pos Malaysia outlets,” he said.

I suggest that the key is getting the telcos, specifically Telekom Malaysia, to fully maximise the broadband capacity in our country first. But that is another story altogether.

  • For deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin, nothing brightens up his day more than to receive a hand-written card or letter in the mail. Sad to say, individual-to-individual letters handled by Pos Malaysia only makes up 10% of what the postman delivers.

     
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